Tesla CEO’s Post Adds to Fray Over Social Media Comments

March 26 (Bloomberg) -- Tesla Motors Inc. Chief Executive
Officer Elon Musk stoked the controversy over giving out
corporate information on social media with a Twitter post that
the electric-car company will make a “really exciting”
announcement next week.

The company’s shares rose for a second day after Musk wrote
yesterday that he planned to “put my money where my mouth is in
v major way” on April 2. The 41-year-old billionaire said he
pushed back the timing of the Palo Alto, California-based
Tesla’s announcement from March 28, the date given in an earlier
post, “to ensure no end of quarter distractions.”

Social network posts by CEOs have raised questions because
of a Securities and Exchange Commission rule that limits how
companies can disseminate information about material events.
Netflix Inc. said in December that it and CEO Reed Hastings
faced a potential civil claim by the SEC over a July message on
Facebook about the company’s customer viewership data. The post
coincided with Netflix shares’ biggest gain in almost six weeks.

Tesla rose 0.9 percent to $37.86 at the close in New York
after climbing 2.5 percent yesterday. The shares have gained 12
percent this year, while the Russell 1000 Index has advanced 10
percent.

Tesla has a goal of becoming profitable this quarter, with
deliveries of the battery-powered Model S forecast to rise to a
record 20,000 in 2013. The company said earlier this month that
it will repay by December 2017 the $465 million in U.S. Energy
Department loans it received to develop and build electric cars.

The company is “still working out the details of the
announcement” and doesn’t plan to have a presence at this
week’s New York auto show, Shanna Hendriks, a spokeswoman, said
in an e-mail. Musk didn’t respond to an e-mail.

December Post

In December, Musk posted to Twitter that Tesla was cash
flow positive during the last week of November. The company has
yet to report a quarterly profit in its three years as a public
company.

The SEC adopted its Regulation Fair Disclosure in 2000,
before the widespread use of social-media outlets such as those
of Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc. The rule, intended to stop
selective disclosure of important information, requires that
companies distribute such announcements through a press release
or widely disseminated news or wire service, or by “any other
non-exclusionary method” that provides broad public access.